An unchopped spinach salad (left) is shown alongside the chopped version from Just Salad. The new pre-chopped salad will have a texture somewhere in between the two.Annie Wermiel

That staple of New York City lunch hour, the chopped salad, has been, well, chopped.

Just Salad, with 20 Manhattan locations, is the latest chain to do away with chopped-on-demand greens. You’ll just have to chew.

“Chopping seems so 2006 now,” said Just Salad founder and CEO Nick Kenner, 37, of the controversial decision, which he says is more efficient — it can take up to two minutes to hand-blitz the greens.

After choosing their ingredients, customers have always had the option to get them hacked by an employee wielding a mezzaluna. But Just Salad has been phasing out that option; by the end of June, only larger, pre-chopped chunks will be offered at all NYC outposts except Rockefeller Center, which will adopt the policy by year’s end.

The chain Fresh & Co. stopped chopping on command two years ago, citing better consistency and reduced risk of contamination. Sweetgreens, another popular salad spot, also has a no-chop policy.

“It’s soup-like if you chop a salad too much — you’d need a spoon over a fork,” said Fresh & Co. CEO George Tenedios.

Supposed quality issues aside, money is a primary motivation here. Same-store sales at branches that have already banned the chop have increased by more than 20 percent, Just Salad’s Kenner said.

Alex Paige was “really upset” she received an unchopped salad.Annie Wermiel

But an employee at the chain’s Rockefeller Center location told The Post: “We’re going to lose a lot of customers if we just stop chopping.”

Nidhi Shah, a 23-year-old financial-services worker, is one of them. “That’s pathetic,” Shah said. “That’s not going to be convenient at all. It’s really easy to eat chopped salad — everything gets mixed so well with the dressing.”

When Alex Paige, a 26-year-old from Kips Bay, visited an East Side location of Just Salad recently, she was denied her usual order of finely chopped veg.

“It kind of was a shock,” Paige said. “Everyone comes to these places for chopped salad. I was really upset.”

Not everyone is enamored with the chop. Stephanie Peksen, 41, a Hartsdale resident who works in midtown, said, “I’m not a baby bird — I don’t need my food pre-chewed.”

But for some time-strapped New Yorkers that’s exactly the point.

Hell’s Kitchen resident Christine Widga, 32, was upset when the pre-chopped beets at Sweetgreen changed from bite-sized to sliced.

“It’s the smallest, stupidest thing, but it’s everything to me,” said Widga. “I had to use a knife!”